


nerves on fire

by alphai



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sex, Nonbinary Character, Other, Spoilers, in the other slowburn fic i havent written yet, they dont ACTUALLY fuck in this but rest assured they have fucked in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 16:09:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20660003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphai/pseuds/alphai
Summary: And it pulls away the world from me, but I don't mind. As long as it won't separate you from me, I'll be fine.





	nerves on fire

**Author's Note:**

> no seriously if you havent played the first ~3 hours of bl3 get off my lawn  
title/summary from seperate by pvris, listen while reading for extra hurtie
> 
> no i will NOT pretend like i remember the exact timeline and no i have NOT even finished the main story yet just let me be self indulgent in peace thank you

It was hard—impossible, even—to keep secrets on Sanctuary III. Tight quarters and too many people meant everyone knew everything about everyone else. So when word came to the bridge that Zero would be returning from their extended stay on Promethea and Lilith _didn't_, for once, greet the new arrival at the loading dock, the rumors started immediately. Almost everybody who stayed from the first Sanctuary already knew that the two of them had been close.

All of the other veteran vault hunters knew that "close" meant they had been sleeping together on occasion. Lilith and Zero knew there was a bit more to it than that.

But Lilith had her reasons for wanting to delay the inevitable. Namely, she didn't want Zero to see her just yet. She wasn't ready, and she knew damn well that they probably weren't ready either. Of course, they _knew_ her tattoos were gone. It would be ridiculous to assume they didn't. Mostly because Lilith had been hiding out in the loading dock's control room when Zero arrived and heard Ellie tell them. No softening the blow, no hesitation. Lilith had to rush to her quarters after that, which probably just raised more suspicion.

The metal floors were nothing if not helpful when it came to warning someone of an approaching visitor. Lilith could hear the footsteps from a mile away, standing against her closed door and just waiting. She heard Zero stop just outside, heard the silence of their brief pause, heard them start to say something, and then finally heard them knock.

Lilith waited too, trying to conjure the energy to even respond without letting them in. But she had to let them in. Knowing Zero, they would just find another way around even if she tried to keep them out. They worried like that.

A spaceship didn't allow her the luxury of slowly opening the door. Once she pressed the button, it opened entirely in two seconds, loudly and without mercy. Zero took a half-step back, an exclamation point lighting up their helmet. Probably involuntary. Reacting to their facial expression behind the mask or their brainwaves registering shock at what they were seeing.

"So...hi?" Lilith offered a weak wave with her now barren left arm.

Zero tried to look relaxed, tried to play off the fact that they were switching off their projections by running a hand over the back of their helmet. One of their four-fingered hands closed into a fist and then opened again at their side.

"Right. Hi." They looked over her arm briefly, focusing back on her face again in a way that she knew they only really did for her. Zero didn't need to bother with the common courtesy of eye contact when nobody could see their eyes, but they always did with Lilith. More than once, they had assured her it was because they enjoyed looking at her, and it was as simple as that.

"How's your fancy new job treating you?" Lilith smiled slightly at them, stepping out of the way of the doorframe so they could actually walk inside and they didn't need to continue this conversation out in the open. Once they did and the door was closed, she gave them a much more obvious once-over and added, "I like the new outfit. Really shows off your legs."

"Lilith." Zero's tone shifted, like it always did with her, away from their struggle to be a mysterious loner with no friends and closer to something more genuine and serious. She knew she was in for a lecture with no poetry. "There's a rakk hive in the room, and if we don't address it, it's going to trample us."

Her face fell, not because she was actually upset by what they said, but more upset with herself for thinking she could even get them to _not_ talk about what had happened.

"I know," she said. She pressed the button under the door controls to lock it, sitting down on her bed and looking up at Zero. "I've just...been trying not to think about it too much. Thinking about it makes me feel like I'm losing my mind."

Zero knelt down in front of her, tilting their head to the side and putting a hand on her left knee. "You know you don't need to hide anything from me."

"I also know it's impossible to hide anything from you."

They made a soft humming noise that Lilith could interpret as them smiling at her, the hand on her leg moving to hold her hand instead. Their fingers laced in with hers and she held them close, letting out a shaky sigh and avoiding looking at them directly, because she could feel them staring at her arm.

"Do you want to see all of it? Just to make sure?"

There was hesitation in their response, mostly, she assumed, because they thought she was trying to use sex as a way to avoid talking about her feelings (which she was). But they still let out a small sigh and let go of her hand to place both of theirs on her hips, sitting up more so their face was level with hers, just looking at her again.

"Do you actually want this, or do you just not want to talk right now?" Zero was always perceptive when it came to her. It tended to throw Lilith for a bit of a loop whenever they caught on to her deeper and more personal thoughts, but this time she really saw it coming.

But that didn't mean she wanted to _keep_ talking.

Lilith just went tight-lipped, not looking at Zero as she slipped her hands out of her gloves and started to take off her jacket and shoulder pads. Zero kept their hands at her side as she tossed her outer layers on the floor and wrangled her way out of her shirt, adding it to the pile as well. She felt the sting of tears at the corner of her eyes as she did, and that surprised her, so she didn't look back at them when she just let her arms fall to her sides, topless save for her bra and completely exposing her lack of markings.

"Tell me I'm not losing my mind," she said, a little more desperately than she had hoped. "Or-or that I'm not dreaming, that nobody's playing some sick joke on me."

The sensation of Zero's gloved fingers on her bare skin calmed her down almost instantly. One hand trailing up the left side of her body, noticeably sticking to the same patterns that they would have if the markings had been there. Muscle memory, or even just normal memory. Lilith watched as Zero carefully ran their fingers over her side, taking the same loops and curves that she had felt them do dozens of times before.

But before it had been different. Before, Zero would lazily trace over her tattoos with bare fingers while they fell asleep together, or she would wake up to them outlining the marks down her back, or the feel of them dragging blunt nails across the thick lines of blue down her thighs would make her shiver and hold them tighter. Before, Zero memorized her tattoos because they thought they were intricate and beautiful. Now, Zero ran their hand over her skin like they were reading an obituary.

She shuffled out of her pants and boots at some point too, just to feel like she wasn't suffocating. It was tempting to ask if Zero was going to take off their helmet too, but Lilith knew better. If she saw the way their face probably looked right now, it would just make this even harder. All the same, she felt the twinge of several different emotions in her gut as the drew now invisible lines up her shin, over her hips, towards her shoulder and down her arm again. They took a gentle hold of her wrist and leaned up to rest the front of their mask into the cook of her neck, the cold temperature making goosebumps appear on her flesh.

"You're not losing your mind," Zero said, their voice softer than she'd ever heard it. "I'm so sorry this happened to you."

Lilith's next breath was even shakier, and she just wrapped her free arm around Zero's shoulders and held them there, not wanting them to move. They didn't make any attempts to, just running their thumb over the side of her wrist.

"I should have been there," they added, so quiet Lilith almost didn't hear it.

But she did, and she leaned back a little too abruptly, holding the side of their helmet in her hand so she could make them look her in the face.

"You wouldn't have been able to change anything," she said firmly. "And I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if the Calypsos had killed you just to get to me."

Her tone was much steadier now, but the look in her eyes gave enough away. Zero didn't press the issue. They stood up so they could set themself down on the cot next to Lilith, and she didn't hesitate to curl up in their lap with her arms around their neck and her face tucked up under their chin. Their new mask was more angular, the bottom corner of it was poking her in the temple, but she didn't care. She just took another deep breath and tried to calm herself down. Zero held her close to their chest, just letting her get whatever comfort she needed.

After a while, she broke the silence, saying, "Your armor smells like a new car."

"I guess I haven't gotten enough blood on it." They ran a hand through her hair and shifted around a bit, trying to make her more comfortable. "Are you going to be alright?"

She laughed a little to herself, nuzzling at where their collarbone would be. "Eventually, yeah."

"And tonight?"

Lilith sat up at that, looking at her distorted reflection in Zero's mask. That, combined with the lights from the ship, just made her look even more exhausted and drained. She knew it was an exaggeration, but she could still only imagine what she must look like right now regardless.

"Tonight I just need you," she decided on. "Make me feel like a person again, okay?"

They already were, really. This was more affection than she had received in...well, however many months it had been since the last time the two of them had been alone together. Too many. Too much time apart. Lilith didn't want to let Zero go back to Promethea just yet. She needed them more than Atlas did. Zero seemed to agree, making a noise of affirmation and holding her tightly again.

"You have me."

**Author's Note:**

> gearbox hire me im better at this than you


End file.
